The mayor of São Paulo Ricardo Nunes (MDB) authorized this Friday, 27th, the initiation of a process to terminate contracts with the bus companies UpBus and Transwolff, accused by the Public Ministry of connection with the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC ).
The order, published in the municipality’s Official Gazette on Friday night, clarifies that the process will be conducted by the Municipal Transport Department and that the decision will be made by the Chief Executive. Companies will be notified and will have 15 days to defend themselves. If the City Council decides to lose the validity of the contracts, new contracts will be launched.
“This is the beginning of the process, now there is a deadline for defense and then, depending on the defense, the expiry is declared. The Municipal Prosecutor’s Office is doing everything very cautiously, with a deadline for defense, the right to a contradictory hearing… aiming to properly instruct the process,” Nunes told Estadão.
The defenses of the two companies could not be reached to comment on the City Hall’s decision. The space remains open.
Since last year, the two companies have been investigated by Operation Fim da Linha, which revealed possible links with PCC. The president of one of them, UPBus, Ubiratan Antônio da Cunha, was arrested last Friday, the 20th, for failing to comply with precautionary measures in the context of the same Operation.
In February, Estadão revealed that after the accusations became public, in 2022, with arrests made and seizures of assets, the companies, nevertheless, received R$827 million in transfers from the Municipal Transport Secretariat and signed eight new contracts for operate the system.
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In total, seven bus companies have been or are being investigated by the Police and the Public Ministry on suspicion of links to organized crime. Together, they are responsible for transporting 27.5% of the capital’s bus passengers, and received R$2 billion from the city of SP in 2023 alone.
Remember the case
The investigation by the Public Ministry points to an “infiltration” by the PCC in the transport sector, through the control of bus companies operated by a network of orange companies and ghost CNPJs. Two of the largest bus companies in São Paulo were accused of having been created with PCC money: UPBus, allegedly controlled by members of the PCC leadership and their relatives; and Transwolff, the third largest company in the sector in the city, with 1,111 vehicles in circulation.
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As Estadão showed in April, the Special Action Group to Combat Organized Crime (Gaeco), the Public Ministry of São Paulo, the Federal Revenue and the Administrative Council for Economic Defense pointed out, after four years of investigation, to the existence of a cartel set up by organized crime to take over the so-called Local Distribution Group of the municipal transport system.
The court ordered the removal of 15 shareholders from UPBus and six from the management of Transwolff and the Cooperpam cooperative. At the time, it was also determined that the City Hall intervened in both companies.
A few days after Operation End of the Line, Nunes stated that Transwolff would no longer manage the water bus system at the Billings dam, in the south of São Paulo. The investigation was widely used by opponents against the then candidate for re-election during the campaign for Mayor of São Paulo this year.
